The concept of vibrating bin dischargers is known in the art. Typically, a vibrating bin discharger includes a cone that is placed beneath a hopper outlet with the cone vibrating in an up and down motion to propel material from the hopper. A gate is positioned in the hopper to shut off the flow of material from the hopper when the vibrating bin discharger is not in use. One of the disadvantages of the known vibrating bin dischargers is that the material can become compacted as the bin discharger vibrates. Another disadvantage is that the vibration of the cone requires large power requirements since the material in the hopper is lifted up during the vibration cycle. Another disadvantage is that if the material contains both large and small particles the vibrator motion can cause segregation of the large and small particles through the up and down motion on the material.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,509 discloses a bin activator with a central feed and a vibration generator located radially offset from the center. While the vibratory action is described as generating a circular orbital motion to the lower bowl the actual motion is not a true circular orbital vibratory motion since the vibration motors are not located at the central vertical axis of the bin activator. As a result of the positioning of the vibratory motors the vibratory motion the cone does not actually follow a circular path. As a result the feeder does not generate a uniform 360-degree delivery of material from a circular opening.
A further difficult with the bin activator shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,509 is that angle of the lower cone is so shallow that material is maintained in the lower bowl rather than being emptied out each time the activator is shut off.
In contrast to the vibrating bin discharges the present invention uses gyrations of a dispensing member to control the flow of material with substantially true circular orbital vibratory motion.